Update Oct 28, 2007: Check out my Free Stuff page for a free, “as is” version of my GTD System for Excel. Use at your own risk. Read all warning and usage texts in the Excel sheet itself. You have been warned! NO SUPPORT for this version. Updates and more stable, commercial versions may follow. Feedback is appreciated.

Update Aug 03, 2007: I’ve stopped using my Excel sheet for GTD about 3 months ago as I’m using a PDA with ListPro as the core of my GTD system at the moment. I’ve decided to release a free, “as is” version of the Excel sheet. I need to brush it up a little first. If you don’t see it appearing for download on my site in, say, a couple of weeks, then remind me nicely

Update Mar 18, 2007: This article describes my current GTD system in words and pictures. At this moment there is no downloadable Excel sheet! If this changes, my blog readers will be the first to know. See the comments section of this post for further discussion.

It is perfectly possible to implement GTD in Excel. In fact, I think Excel is a perfect tool for many purposes. Using a combination of built-in Excel formulas and my own custom made VBA code, I have implemented a basic GTD system for myself. It is in fact an ongoing project, but I am using the system successfully every day.

I have been playing around with quite a few GTD tools, but none of them has satisfied all of these requirements. My own GTD system satisfies all my requirements and more. The most important property of any tool is that is easy and fun to use, otherwise the tool will not be used properly and certainly not regularly. Instead of conforming my ideas to other GTD tools, I have created my own GTD tool that conforms to my own ideas.

So what does it actually look like?

First, let me show you the overview and data entry screen, the “dashboard” screen if you will. Please note that I have taken the liberty of blurring certain parts of the following screenshots to protect my own privacy .

GTD – dashboard(click image for larger version)

The dashboard is used to get a quick overview of how many actions and projects are active or finished. It also shows the oldest and newest 5 actions (this doesn’t work properly yet and I am starting to doubt the usefulness of this information anyway). One thing to bear in mind is that all the information on the dashboard is generated automatically and dynamically from the other sheets.

The righthand side of the screen is used for data entry. Actions, projects, someday/maybe’s and other data are entered here.
Some more details about adding a new action: you simply type a description of the action, optionally select a project from the list, optionally select a context from the list and optionally enter a due date for this action.
If the action is actually a “waiting for” action then check the appropriate checkbox. Finally, click on the Add button to actually add a new action.

Actually, with some Excel magic, I have been able to construct dynamic pull-down lists for projects and contexts. No manual editing or maintenance required whatsoever!
The following screenshot shows part of the projects pull-down list:

The next sheet shows a detailed overview of (all, or part of) the list of next actions. Using standard Excel tools, like autofiltering and sorting, it is very easy and convenient to show e.g. unfinished actions for a certain context (or project). This is what the screen looks like:

GTD – next actions(click image for larger version)

Note how finished next actions (tasks, if you will) are automatically greyed out and waiting for actions are automatically highlighted.

Example: Using Excel’s autofilter it is easy to show only the next actions that are unfinished in the context of @Calls:

Actions can be manipulated directly on this sheet by using the 3 buttons in the upper-right corner of the screen: Finish Action(s), Unfinish Action(s) and Mark deleted. Just select any number of actions and click one of the buttons to perform the corresponding operation.

The next sheet shows an overview of your GTD projects (in GTD terminology a project requires more than just one physical next action):

GTD – projects(click image for larger version)

Just like the list of next actions, the list of projects can be filtered and sorted by using standard Excel tools. Projects can be (un)finished or marked deleted similarly to next actions by selecting one or more projects from the list and clicking the appropriate button. Finished projects are automatically greyed out.

Syncing Excel to paper

Perhaps the most important requirement that I put on any GTD system (which, perhaps, is why many of them are not suitable for me) is the ability to flawlessly sync the next actions, projects, et cetera to paper. My offline GTD system consists mainly of a pen and one or more (usually two) PocketMods. If you are unfamiliar with a PocketMod, I suggest you visit www.pocketmod.com to find out how wonderfully ingenious one single sheet of paper can be .

The final sheet I want to show you from my Excel GTD system formats the underlying data (next actions, waiting for, projects, someday/maybe’s) into one giant list by executing some custom made VBA code. It can even add manual pagebreaks if needed.

GTD – pocketmod(click image for larger version)

Note how some next actions are automatically labeled with project numbers. This makes it easier to find the corresponding project in the numbered list in my pocketmod.
By simply adjusting the font size and page margins it is very easy to make Excel print this aggregated list into a PDF with a maximum of 8 pages (which is the maximum allowed for a pocketmod). I create the PDF straight from Excel by using PDFCreator, but other solutions are readily available. One of the pages in the resulting PDF file looks like this:

Excel printed to a PDF file(click image for larger version)

Next actions are sorted and grouped (by context). Projects and someday/maybe’s are numbered for easy reference. Each page contains a footer with the current page number, my name and telephone number and the creation date.

You are now one step away from taking all of the information from the Excel GTD system and carry it with you on a single sheet of paper, folded into a small booklet (pocketmod). The (maximum) 8 page PDF just created is transformed into a pocketmod by using a small program from the PocketMod website, called PDFtoPocketMod:

PDFtoPocketMod program (click image for larger version)

The transformed PDF (actual pocketmod) looks like this:

Final pocketmod PDF ready to be printed(click image for larger version)

Printing and folding this single sheet of paper will actually allow you to carry an up-to-date, simple to use, lightweight, paper-based GTD system with you in your pocket! I have used everything from laptop to PDA, from paper notebook to index cards (hipster PDA!), but nothing -in my humble opinion- compares to the simplicity, portability and flexibility of a pen/pencil and a pocketmod!

Actually, I usually print a fresh pocketmod every day or every other day. The back of the pocketmod is used for collecting notes and new actions or projects. On a regular basis (typically daily) I “sync” the (changed) information from the pocketmod back to the Excel GTD system. This is what the resulting pocketmod looks like:

Photo of the final pocketmod(click image for larger version)

There is one more thing left to show you from my Excel-based GTD system. The sheets to the right of the red “divider sheet” actually contain all the underlying information of my GTD system:

GTD – remaining sheets (click image for larger version)

This is the “workhorse” part of the system that makes everything I showed you above possible. It is beyond the scope of this blog entry to show you the inner workings or contents of these sheets…

Conclusion

To me, Excel has proved to be a valuable tool for implementing a GTD system that is actually easy and fun to use, does exactly what I want it to do (since I created it! ) and allows flexible syncing to paper (pocketmod).
In other words, I have created an environment that is perfectly suited to my (GTD) needs, therefore making it easier to use and keep using Getting Things Done to successfully organize my personal and professional life!

If/when I feel that the Excel GTD file is suitable for releasing to the public in the future, I will certainly consider sharing it with other GTD fans. At the moment I feel it is only usable by me and still needs a lot of work to make it suitable for a general user.

[quote comment="7"]Nice. Very nice. I love Excel, but I have a lot to learn especially on the VBA front. This looks really good. Well done.[/quote]

It only uses a small amount of VBA, the rest is built upon standard Excel formulas, though some are a bit complex. My dream would be to make a grand unified spreadsheet that works in Excel, Google Spreadsheets and OpenOffice to name a few.

[...] 5 GTD systems I should be using someday…maybe. January 15th, 2007 by David Allen The article from last saturday caught me by surprise I must say. I am not used to receiving that much comments on one article and I must say, I love it. Thank you for your input, your thoughts, ideas and follow up posts on your own blogs. Keep’em coming, because it helps me in finding a more perfect way in my own personal productivity. In various comments there were mentions of different other systems that should or could do the trick of making me the stressfree productivity zenmaster I long to be. So as a little follow up to the 5 systems I stopped using, here are 5 mentions of systems I or you could be using… My Life Organized One of the most mentioned apps the last couple of days is MLO or My Life Organized. And I must say, when you check out the site and the features of the program, very interesting…But when I look at the pricetag I am a little bummed out. I haven’t tried it yet, but I read reviews and I might try it someday. Text This one is for the textfetish among you. Big textfiles on your Mac or PC, working the way you want. Very simple, very tweakable. Together with apps like ActiveWord, Quicksilver, Getfingertips etc to populate it and live by it. I am not a textperson. Sorry. Tried it in the past for a couple of days but not my cup of tea. There are some excellent resources on making your own textbased system. Check out Lifehacker and GTD Wannabe for starters. Excel I found this little pearl of wisdom while browsing some GTD-feeds this weekend. Again, Excel is not my kind of app. I think it’s some teenage angst from the nineties or so, I don’t know. But Excel is for making spreadsheets, not building your life around it. But check out the article this guy wrote about his use of Excel and perhaps it is something you want to try out. Moleskine Ahhh…How could I forget. Ye olde Moleskine! The notebook of the great and glorious! And yep, there is my problem with it. I have 4 Moleskines. And I dare not write notes in them. The problem with Moleskines is the same problem with fresh fallen snow in your yard. It’s too pretty to damage. You don’t walk into a big field of fresh fallen snow with your boots. Snowboarding through it is another thing, I know from experience…but you admire it, take pictures, look at it. And do nothing. Same with my Moleskines. I hate my handwriting and I don’t like the way the notebooks turn out for me. All kinds of scribles, crossed out thoughts, half pages with some words…Nope, the Moleskine is more for special occassions I guess. ThinkingRock Several people mentioned ThinkingRock and to be honest, I had it installed already but didn’t get around to try it. So yesterday I exported my mindmap and imported it into TR. And I must say, very interesting program! I am not quite used to the terms used in the program like “Thoughts” and “Topics” and turning collected items into projects is somewhat of a hassle, but at first glance, TR looks as something with potential for me. It is easy, small, somewhat configurable and does what it needs to do around the GTD system. I’m gonna try this for a while and see how it goes. So after 5 systems I stopped using, here are 5 systems I could be using and one of them I am actually using. Thanks everybody for the kind words and tips. If you have some more, please don’t hesitate to put them in the comments here or at the other article. And Pascal, I’m gonna think about your idea you dropped in the comments. I want to give it another spin than the thought you mentioned [...]

[quote comment="19"]Why not share it and let people wrestle with it if they like to?
You might even get some better working version back by this.

Just a thought.[/quote]

Good idea! The thought had crossed my mind and I will probably do this in the future. I’m a (former) programmer and don’t like to release concept+code that’s still embarassingly ugly, inefficient, ad hoc and incomplete

Just another plea for sharing this: like most of us who get interested in GTD, I’m still shopping around for the perfect system, and this one looks very tempting to me, but I don’t have the skills to set it up. Anytime you think it’s ready, I’d love to know!

Thanks for your interest in my GTD system and ideas. If I am ever going to release a decent version of the Excel GTD system to the general public, it is definitely going to be announced on this GTD blog.

I would also love to see your XLS template, if you’re ever willing to share!

I have just started using Hiveminder (hiveminder.com) and am really liking it so far (I notice it’s not on your Ultimate Index, which is why I mention it). The tagging feature allows a lot of flexible sorting like you describe here. It also walks you through a review activity for any list you’re viewing, which I used today for my weekly review.

It does have a couple things that could be improved to be more GTD-friendly, but it’s also under very active development, so I am suggesting these as I go along.

Thank you for your interest in my Excel GTD system!
As for hiveminder.com, I took a quick peek at the website but I admit I didn’t try the online application. It looks like another online task management system. I am trying to keep the GTD Index strictly GTD related and I’m therefore hesitant to add any kind of general task manager unless they explicitly support the GTD methodology. Let me know if my first impression is wrong about hiveminder.com and I will reconsider adding it to the GTD Index.
Thanks for your feedback!

Hi, Great article. Well written, well reasoned, illustrated with pictures. AND NO EXCEL FILE TO USE. That’s like a band showing photos of their concerts, rehearsal space, the console they used to record the tracks and then NO AUDIO FILES TO LISTEN TO.

The point was to show my GTD setup as I currently use it and to inspire other GTD enthusiasts. If I show pictures of my other GTD tools, like my diary, or my inbox, or my tickler, do you also expect that you can get these tools from me? If I make something or show something, it doesn’t automatically mean it should be shared and/or instantly available, does it??

On the other hand, I do appreciate all the positive feedback I am getting about using Excel for GTD. I refer to all the comments above about when, how or why the Excel file will ever be available for download.

Let me start by saying that I do appreciate your screenshots of your Excel implementation of GTD.

I think what you are hearing is that people would really want to get this and try it out for themselves. A lot of people use Excel, but most don’t really use it to it’s full extent and I believe it’s far superior to Online implementations of GTD that I’ve seen due to many things you’ve outlined. My top two have been 1) Security (I want full control over my file and I password lock it during save and need to enter a Password to unlock it each and every morning I open it 2) It needed to be a single file for portability and archival 3) It needed to be quick to deal with Actions.

Now comes the part when I think I’ll do a little analysis here.
It sounds to me you are getting yourself “wrapped around the axle” about perfectionism rather than keeping in the spirit of sharing even if it’s not done. There has to be .1 or 1.0 release, someday right? I’ll be blunt and say that I believe you put a considerable amount of work into this and you either a)Don’t feel it’s perfect or b)Don’t feel like sharing because it was hard work (why give something hard earned away for free?). I’ll be very open by saying that I believe it’s mostly the latter by your comments but I could be wrong since you are indeed sharing by showing us what it looks like.
I guess what I’m saying is that people won’t really know until they tried it out. It’s like testing any online app for GTD. It will excel (no pun intended) in one criteria and fail at another.

I also use Excel to track all my Next Actions, but also for a team of Engineers since I’m a manager and I’ve found it extremely useful. What I found most useful in your implementation that differs from mine is that you have id numbers to identify each task. Other than that I don’t see great merit in having an “add project” or similar functionality since one can just add this to a single worksheet in one line (which you also have BTW) It’s just that the Dashboard view is less helpful I believe. I find it much faster to view all my Next actions this way and I simply perform a Data/Filter/Autofilter to sort by Project, etc. I’m following a K.I.S.S. principle for this and it also lends itself quite nicely for cut/paste into an email when I’m delegating to my employees “Next Actions/Tasks” on thier plate. It’s also less time consuming to figure it out if I had to explain it to someone.

Another addition I’ve done is Conditional Formatting for the columns and to calculate the “Days until Due”. For example, if it’s getting close (under 3 days) until a due date, the color of a cell will change color from a nice Blue towards Red. If it’s past due it’s obviously Red and will continue to show the days. BTW, I’m very anxious to fully move into Excel 2007 which I’ve enjoyed and also formatting and bar/color graphs within cells.

I haven’t perfected my sheet but I’m thinking about sharing it also and quite honestly I’m probably in the same boat as you in thinking “it’s not done yet”. But also a somewhat selfish side of me is also thinking “Man, why share this? ”

I appreciate your candid approach and I agree with you that it is a combination of at least 2 things that you have mentioned in your comment (actually, there are other private reasons which are… well… private ).

Shortly after discovering GTD and having tried a million different digital GTD solutions (and not liking a single one of them), I invested a couple of weeks of my time to create a very preliminary, very unfinished but highly customized Excel sheet for implementing GTD.

The thought of sharing this Excel sheet didn’t arise until after reading all the comments on my blog. Honestly, I was surprised by the overwhelming interest in my Excel GTD system! I haven’t even had time in months to develop the Excel GTD system further. I just use it “as is”, which means you need some understanding of Excel and VBA to use it correctly.

I feel reluctant to release something that might look great in the screenshots but is basically very unstable and requires a great deal of “inside” knowledge. I also feel reluctant to release something in a hurry right now without having a chance to think about future development and other future plans I may have with this Excel system or even variations of my own online or offline GTD system (I am a former (web) programmer after all).

All options are open at this point. There is even the possibility of releasing a free public version of the Excel system but with no support from me, and perhaps an advanced, commercial version with product support and documentation, and so on. My main point is that I didn’t even have time to think about these possibilities properly, and I am not going to let myself be forced to release something that I do not agree with and cannot support.

However, this is all speculation because I have so many other things on my projects and someday/maybe lists. The readers of my blog will be the first to know about my future plans with my Excel GTD system!

You sir, are a stand up guy and I also appreciate your response. Whatever happens next please know that you DO help others with ideas on how they can possibly implement GTD in their own lives. If anything you have definitely sparked an interest in Excel as a tool and bottom line, that is enough in my book.

Personally I’m still on a quest to find that elusive set of tools that will help manage the daily flow of information. My system will likely continue to be a hybrid of paper and electronic. I have yet to see a set of tools that exist that can satisfy my thirst for the “best of breed” because I believe everyone out there has their own taste and I’m no different. Some will try Paper only, and some will be looking at web-based systems, etc. Right now I’m trying out everything and settling on tools that seem to resonate with me personally. Maybe in a year or two the dust will settle on a couple of tools. Then again maybe a new tool will come out and rock my world.

Here’s to everyone out there as they journey toward the best tools possible. Just don’t forget to “get things done” in-between fiddling with them.

Great stuff, no wonder there is a big interest to try it out. I agree with you to take your time to think first and do the right thing second . No hurry, people will want it in few months as well as they do now, maybe more .

I’m in the same process of trying out many different GTD systems. I’m more of “electronic way” guy so playing with papers didn’t sound right for me but after reading your article, I’m starting to change my attitude as I see it’s so easy to use.

Btw. great that you’ve started this blog and share your ideas. I found it today and reading it from the beginning

Thanks for your compliment! And good luck reading everything I have written so far!

I think you are in the phase many of us are going through one or more times, that is, trying different GTD systems, or tweaking your “ultimate” GTD system until it feels just right. I have managed to stay with my hybrid GTD system for several months now, implementing minor tweaks only.

Have just started GTD and am currently using totally paper based system which can be awkward. Would love to be able to use something like this. To keep things to the point, like it, want it. Well done.

I’ve been watching this page for 7 months now and am still patiently awaiting a chance to take a look at the actual spreadsheet. If it’s money issue I’m sure that there are a number of us that would be willing to kick you some dough for even a “not ready for public consumption” product. I like to tinker with programs, spreadsheets, databases, ect and tweak them where I can and I’d love to crack into this one. Please consider letting us take a look at what looks like a wonderful tool!

@Dave and others:
I’ve stopped using my Excel sheet for GTD about 3 months ago as I’m using a PDA with ListPro as the core of my GTD system at the moment.

I’ve decided to release a free, “as is” version of the Excel sheet. I need to brush it up a little first. If you don’t see it appearing for download on my site in, say, a couple of weeks, then remind me nicely

Many thanks for your promise to release the excel sheet as a “free as-is” version. I am in the look-out for a new system. It would be really helpful, if you could release the sheet asap. I am sure there are a lot of people will to try it immediately.

@Karti:
Thanks for the kind reminder. I still stand by my promise, but other activities claim my time. I’ll post more info (and hopefully including a download link) whenever I’ve had some time to continue working on a presentable “free” version of my Excel GTD sheet! This is not going to take months, I promise!

Hi,
Can you let us know whether you intend to publish this? I see that people have been asking since January and would be great if you can confirm this, one way or another.
To get a look at the excel concepts rather than waiting for a perfect version, would still be a great help. Thanks

Hello,
Great article! great implement in Excel (at least, according the pictures…)
It’s a pity, you don’t share it. It would interesting to submit it to the community for feedbacks, customization and improvement.
“Getting things done” in a intelligent way: we are more smarter together than alone.
with best regards,
alan

Update Oct 28, 2007: Check out my Free Stuff page for a free, “as is” version of my GTD System for Excel. Use at your own risk. Read all warning and usage texts in the Excel sheet itself. You have been warned! NO SUPPORT for this version. Updates and more stable, commercial versions may follow. Feedback is appreciated.

Frankly sir, your a pin head. What would it hurt to share a strip down version to get people started. I read your “rationalization” but the bottom line is you don’t like to share. You’d rather “show off” how smart you are. I got you number, you’re a pin head.